Creatively Ever After

Around the world corporate executives have identified creativity as a key component to success. Creativity breeds innovation. Innovation gets results. There is a call for creativity in the workplace; however, there are few solutions for building deliberate creativity skills. That is, until now. Learn how to consistently bring new thinking to your organization’s toughest challenges by using the prove Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process.

Discover simple ways to:

Develop breakthrough creative solutions

Unlock your personal creativity

Solve the right organizational problems efficiently and effectively

Generate more ideas, and better ideas, in a shorter amount of time

Build creative leadership skills

Readers report the techniques learned from Creatively Ever After have helped them think up new ways of solving problems, close hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales, develop stronger relationships with their families, give their children an advantage in school and life by building creative thinking skills.

With wit and a deft hand, Alicia turns a timeless tale into a valuable teaching tool. Her book illuminates essential skills for creative thinning that will be useful for managers and teachers or anyone looking to sharpen their ability to manifest positive change.”

Blair Miller, Publisher, FourSight: the Breakthrough Thinking Profile

Universal storytelling and the childhood imagination evoke powerful memories. Every culture has its tales of heroes, heroines and fantasy escapades and deeds in problematic situations. Alicia Arnold has created an original and entertaining journey into our childhood imaginations and the realm of daily problem solving possibilities with her book, “Creatively Ever After”.

It is a deceptively simple guide to finding more creative ways to solve the problems of our own escapades and deeds and is couched in the guise of a familiar fairy tale that taps into our childhood imagination. Creative Problem Solving is a deceptively simple process for finding extraordinary solutions to our wicked (seemingly unsolvable or very difficult) problems.

We are the heroes and heroines who, along with Jack and Jill trying to carry water down the hill, follow the clearly written CPS process. The steps, clearly outlined at the end of each chapter, have been couched in the fairy tale metaphor from our childhood imagination. Success is ours for the making, just as it was when we were entranced by the simple solutions of fairy tales. Congratulations to Alicia for designing a powerful framework that is portable and shows us our potential for Creative Problem Solving at any stage of life.

Carol Yeager, Lifelong Learner currently a Mentor and course developer with SUNY/Empire State College

Creatively Ever After is brilliant! It incorporates a process with a theme that everyone can relate to. It should be a mandatory read in our educational system. You don’t have to be in a creative field to get value and learn new skills from this book. Well done Alicia!”

Dawn Quesnel, “Coach DQ”, CareerLifeBalance.net

A deceptively simple and fun read, Arnold creates an experience for the reader to observe and participate in the Creative Problem Solving process along with Jack, Jill and a host of other classic storybook characters. Including discussion points, clear demonstrations and instructions for applying CPS to real-life challenges, this little book packs a punch! It is a valuable resource for managers, trainers, leaders, individuals and teams looking to develop and fine-tune their abilities to tackle complex issues and challenges in the real world using the CPS process.”

Tara Bissett, Keychange Institute

Alicia asked that I take a look
At her new creativity book
And in short measure I was hooked

With CPS on every page
Readers can become quite sage
They just need to following each stage

Victoria Cliche, President & CEO, Creative Education Foundation

…Alicia Arnold’s book “Creatively Ever After: A Path to Innovation” has just been a delightful review of CPS concepts and tools. The story is easy to follow; dialogs are simple; and the CPS steps – enumerated at the end of each chapter -are very helpful. The glossary attached at the end of the book is also helpful. Besides learning CPS, the reader is pleasantly suprised that well water can be delivered to other locations in so many different ways. And this is the result of CPS….”

Emil Stempel, Engineering Professional

As a child I loved buying Scholastic books in elementary school. Reading the new book Creatively Ever After by Alicia Arnold, I couldn’t help thinking that even though this is, apparently, being marketed to adults, that a real audience might exist in junior readers. I would have found this to be really interesting when I was young!”

Lydia Pettis, Life Coach, MS, CPC, ACC

The way Alicia connects Creative Problem Solving (CPS) to nursery rhymes is both stimulating and enjoyable (you shouldn’t
feel you’re learning something when reading a nursery rhyme, but in fact you do

The book explains the CPS process and how it can be applied to both work and life challenges in an easy method.
As the story unfolds, you’ll find the sidebar Questions, tools, and notes very handful and enhances your understanding of
the creative process.

Directions: Choose a personal challenge (whether it’s your next family vacation spot or a making a life-changing
entrepreneurial decision), start reading the book and apply the tools offered by Jack and Jill.
Re-read as needed with all life’s hiccups. Spice up with your own tools and style.

Remember, nursery rhymes are made to be re-read many times (at least 4 times a night if it was a favorite!).

Enjoy!

Randah Taher, M.S. Creativity and Change Leadership

How about learning something great through a story from a nursery rhyme? Yes, you can do it through this book. Obviously the author takes a very original approach in introducing creative problem solving process, and she executes in a succinct and effective way. If you are searching for a fun read to improve your creativity and problem solving skills, this book should be on the top of your list. While the first thing that strikes you may be its children-friendliness, it has much more than that. For example, its emphasis on the role of emotions in creativity is not widely found in creativity books. In short, this book is a lot of fun for both children and adults, and indeed it helps you to live creatively ever after.”

What Arnold has achieved in Creatively Ever After is nothing short of storytelling genius. Her artful and innovative use of nursery rhyme to illustrate the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process is both flawless in its simplicity and delightful in its approach. A quick and entertaining, yet highly educational read, it should become the “go-to” resource for anyone – young or old alike – interested in enhancing their creative thinking skills.”

“I’ve read a lot of good creativity books over the years, and so it blew me away that Alicia’s stands out from the crowd as much as it does. The use of a nursery rhyme as the foundational story is (shall I say it) a very creative idea. I never thought I would care so much about Jack and Jill’s challenge. And I love the way Alicia weaves the essence and the pragmatics of CPS into their adventure. This book is fun and it functions well as a stand-alone guidebook to CPS basics. If you teach, you should give it to your class as summer reading, for sure!”

Anne Steiner Manning, Drumcircle

Creatively Ever After is a quick and entertaining book that uses familiar characters to teach readers the most effective steps to creative problem solving. Alicia Arnold’s explanations are clear, helpful, and witty. The simplicity and charm of the Jack and Jill tale inspired me to teach the CPS model to a group of high school and middle school students as part of a summer camp leadership class. This story is a reminder that creative problem solving is something that all of us can learn about at any age, and then continue to hone those skills for a lifetime.”

Michele Lenhart, Director of Student Leadership and Involvement, Ithaca College

A fun and creative read. True to the CPS process and clever about demonstrating the intricacies of navigating it. Good for kids of all ages… especially the older ones like you and me.”

Stavros Michailidis, Founder at Innovation Bound

Lurking beneath this charming, seemingly simple tale is nothing less than magic for your business. As someone who has been through CPS with Alicia, I can testify that she’s the best possible guide to introduce you to the actionable creativity that CPS reliably produces. Buy this book. End of story.”

Steve Mulder, Director of User Experience, NPR Digital Services

A deceptively simple concept that conveys the invaluable lessons for personal or professional life! It was a delightful read that easily laid out the steps and strategies for CPS. I couldn’t wait to learn what solution Jack and Jill would reach.”

Pamela Fuselli, Executive Director, Safe Kids Canada

Creativity Ever After offers a clever and unique take on the Creative Problem Solving process and is incredibly engaging and deceptively simplistic in its approach. By utilizing well known nursery rhymes to build the CPS story the reader is encouraged to tap into some of the greatest tools of creativity—humor and playfulness. Appropriate for CPS newbies and experienced practitioners alike, the book provides an easy and approachable means to learn, practice and/or teach CPS. A thoroughly enjoyable journey and a must-read for anyone interested in creative problem solving… one word of caution though—be prepared to laugh out loud!

Tania Plascencia, Innovation Facilitator, TNS

For a book that is less than 200 pages, Creatively Ever After is big on value. I did not want to put it down! The power of this book is that you can launch a problem solving strategy, making the most of the human intellect, in the smallest period of time, to achieve a goal. The techniques are easy enough to use with children, yet advanced enough for top executives of global companies. Genius!”

Michael Ng, CCH Account Manager

It’s not very often that a book comes along that is both engaging to read and full of great creativity content. Creatively Ever After is an approachable, fun and relevant guide to anyone who is looking to deliberately enhance their creative problem solving skills. A great introduction to the CPS process that you can read in just one sitting. I know I did!

I highly recommend it.”

Russ Shoen, Chief Facilitator, Upshift Innovation

I just finished the book and it was excellent. I found it both very clever and educational.”

In Creatively Ever After: A Path to Innovation Arnold uses a thoughtful journey through Mother Goose to clearly introduce the reader to the process of Creative Problem Solving (CPS). She starts with Jack and Jill’s dilemma and leads them – and the reader – through a strong foundation in CPS. The strength of this brief read lies in the straightforward application of the CPS process. The end of chapter SideBars are especially useful as readers learn to apply CPS to their personal or business challenges.”

Dr. Theresa Thewes, Department of Chemistry, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania

I just finished Creatively Ever After in one sitting! It is an easy read in that it is enjoyable, well crafted and clear. As a person trained in the Creative Problem Solving (CPS) process myself, I was intrigued by Alicia Arnold’s idea to introduce readers to CPS through childhood nursery rhymes. I even admit I was a bit apprehensive …that this approach might be too contrived. But that was not the case at all. Instead, the use of Jack & Jill’s daily predicament (tumbling down the hill with their pails of water) as a problem in great need of creative attention via CPS, serves as a springboard – launching the reader into the process with great contextual support combined with useful examples and plenty of “how-to.” Alicia’s use of interval sidebars, which include relevant information and often function as concrete exercises, ground the book in a practicality that is appealing not only to organizations seeking innovative jolts, but also in life-coaching or guidance situations.

Courtney Johnson-Woods, Writer, Teacher & Consultant

Over my years working in creativity,..I have never read a book that worked out, and more clearly explained, the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process from beginning to end. I applaud you for your very creative and well written book.”

Robert Alan Black, Ph.D, International Creative Workplace Consultant

A must read for leaders, team members and facilitators who want to free their thinking to create new futures. Easy to relate to, a gentle progression, and great examples. Takes the reader on a unique journey inside the creative problem solving process from start to happy ending using well-known nursery rhyme characters as protagonists.”

Marci Segal, President. CREATIVITYLAND, Inc.

Clear and concise, this book is a delightful read. Through stories and deliberate strategies, opportunities are provided to expand your thinking and problem solving. Appropriate for professionals to consider multiple angles to get to the heart of effective creative problem solving and for challenging young adults to expand their think deliberately.”